So, I’m not a red meat eater, but for Christmas, my brother-in-law got Chris & I a gift card for The Keg Steakhouse & Bar. I’ve eaten there before and quite enjoyed it, and since my birthday is on Monday, I called the restaurant yesterday to make a reservation for Saturday night (Monday we’re going to a home birth class… what a great present).

They don’t accept reservations for Friday and Saturday night. What? I mean, seriously? Those are the nights that restaurants make a ton of cash, so why can’t they accept a reservation? Maybe they lose money by holding tables for people that are late or never show up? I didn’t really ask questions because honestly, we’re going in at around 6pm and I expect most people meet for dinner later than that.

So last night, I have this dream. Chris and I go to the Keg, where we’re seated in a waiting room with four other people, all holding gift cards as well. A waitress comes in and says we will all be seated downstairs, and to please follow her. We follow her down two flights of stairs into a bright white cafeteria packed with boxes and those shitty little folding tables that are in elementary school cafs, lit with florescent lights. I say, “I’m not eating under these florescent lights,” and she replies, “You’re right!”

We keep walking through the cafeteria and when we leave, we’re in a greenhouse, but there are no plants — just dirt. The girl pulls something out of her pocket and a console shoots up out of the ground while gardening hoses spray water all around us. She pushes a button on the console and another passageway appears, which she escorts us down. We walk up one more flight of stairs and she opens the doors with a smile: “You can use your Keg gift cards here.”

We’re in a country line dancing club. It’s full of old people dancing around and for some reason, there’s a bowling ball alley here too. These people are really bad at bowling, so the balls are just randomly sliding across the floor and it’s like playing Frogger or something. I turn to tell the woman, “I’m not eating here,” but she has already slipped back through the doors behind us and locked them.

Well, we are pissed, and when we look outside we realize we’re at least five kilometres away from The Keg, and for some god-forsaken reason our puppies are in the car in the parking lot there. So we wait at the doors for the waitress to escort the next group of gift card wielders into the line dancing club, and demand to be returned to the restaurant. She agrees to bring us there. Then when we reach the greenhouse again, the garden hoses shoot up out of the ground and spray us in our faces.

Then I woke up, furious.

I think I have some sort of deep-rooted psychological issue with the fact that they rejected our reservation.